Physical-Layer Security with Full-Duplex Transceivers and Multiuser Receiver at Eve

Full-duplex communication enables simultaneous transmission from both ends of a communication link, thereby promising significant performance gains. Generally, it has been shown that the throughput and delay gains of full-duplex communication are somewhat limited in realistic network settings, leading researchers to study other possible applications that can accord higher gains. The potential of full-duplex communication in improving the physical-layer security of a communication link is investigated in this contribution. We specifically present a thorough analysis of the achievable ergodic secrecy rate and the secrecy degrees of freedom with full-duplex communication in the presence of a half-duplex eavesdropper node, with both single-user decoding and multi-user decoding capabilities. For the latter case, an eavesdropper with successive interference cancellation and joint decoding capabilities is assumed. Irrespective of the eavesdropper capabilities and channel strengths, the ergodic secrecy rate with full-duplex communication is found to grow linearly with the log of the direct channel signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) as opposed to the flattened out secrecy rate with conventional half-duplex communication. Consequently, the secrecy degrees of freedom with full-duplex is shown to be two as opposed to that of zero in half-duplex mode

Improving Secrecy Performance of a Wirelessly Powered network

This paper considers the secrecy communication of a wirelessly powered network, where an energy constrained legitimate transmitter (Alice) sends message to a legitimate receiver (Bob) with the energy harvested from a dedicated power beacon (PB), while an eavesdropper (Eve) intends to intercept the information. A simple time-switching protocol with a time-switching ratio $\alpha$ is used to supply power for the energy constrained legitimate transmitter. To improve the physical layer security, we firstly propose a protocol that combines maximum ratio transmission (MRT) with zero-forcing (ZF) jamming for the case where Eve is passive in the network, so that Alice only has access to the channel state information (CSI) of Bob. Then we propose a protocol that uses a ZF transmitting strategy to minimize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at Eve for the case where Eve is active in the network, so that Alice only has access to the partial CSI of Eve. Closed-form expressions and simple approximations of the connection outage probability and secrecy outage probability are derived for both protocols. Furthermore, the secrecy throughput as well as the diversity orders achieved by our proposed protocols are characterized and the optimal time-switching ratio $\alpha$ and power allocation coefficient $\beta$ for secrecy throughput maximization are derived in the high SNR regime. Finally, numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed schemes

Physical layer security for wireless-powered ambient backscatter cooperative communication networks

Low power consumption and high spectrum efficiency as the great challenges for multi-device access to Internet-of-Things (IoT) have put forward stringent requirements on the future intelligent network. Ambient backscatter communication (ABcom) is regarded as a promising technology to cope with the two challenges, where backscatter device (BD) can reflect ambient radio frequency (RF) signals without additional bandwidth. However, minimalist structural design of BD makes ABcom security vulnerable in wireless propagation environments. By virtue of this fact, this paper considers the physical layer security (PLS) of a wireless-powered ambient backscatter cooperative communication network threatened by an eavesdropper, where the BD with nonlinear energy harvesting model cooperates with decode-and-forward (DF) relay for secure communication. The PLS performance is investigated by deriving the secrecy outage probability (SOP) and secrecy energy efficiency (SEE). Specifically, the closed-form and asymptotic expressions of SOP are derived as well as the secrecy diversity order for the first time. As an energy-constrained device, balancing power consumption and security is major concern for BD, thus the SEE of the proposed network is studied. The results from numerical analysis show that the performance improvement of SOP and SEE is impacted by system parameters, including transmit power, secrecy rate threshold, reflection efficiency and distance between the source and BD, which provide guidance on balancing security and energy efficiency in ambient backscatter cooperative relay networks

Secured green communication scheme for interference alignment based networks

In this paper, a new security and green communication scheme is proposed to the Interference-Alignment (IA) based networks. To achieve a secured communication, full-duplex receivers are utilized to transmit artificial noise (AN). Both the signals and the ANs are used to harvest energy to realize green communication. For these reasons, the feasible conditions of this scheme are analyzed first. Secondly, the average transmission rate, the secrecy performance and the harvested energy are investigated. Thirdly, an optimization scheme of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is given to optimize the information transmission and the energy harvesting efficiency. Meanwhile, an improved IA iteration algorithm is designed to eliminate both the AN and the interference. Furthermore, relay cooperation is considered and its system performance is analyzed. The simulations show that the target average transmission rate is not affected by AN, while the secrecy performance can be greatly improved. The energy harvesting efficiency is also better than the traditional schemes. As expected, the average transmission rate further is improved with the relay cooperation

Securing internet of medical things with friendly-jamming schemes

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)-enabled e-healthcare can complement traditional medical treatments in a flexible and convenient manner. However, security and privacy become the main concerns of IoMT due to the limited computational capability, memory space and energy constraint of medical sensors, leading to the in-feasibility for conventional cryptographic approaches, which are often computationally-complicated. In contrast to cryptographic approaches, friendly jamming (Fri-jam) schemes will not cause extra computing cost to medical sensors, thereby becoming potential countermeasures to ensure security of IoMT. In this paper, we present a study on using Fri-jam schemes in IoMT. We first analyze the data security in IoMT and discuss the challenges. We then propose using Fri-jam schemes to protect the confidential medical data of patients collected by medical sensors from being eavesdropped. We also discuss the integration of Fri-jam schemes with various communication technologies, including beamforming, Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer (SWIPT) and full duplexity. Moreover, we present two case studies of Fri-jam schemes in IoMT. The results of these two case studies indicate that the Fri-jam method will significantly decrease the eavesdropping risk while leading to no significant influence on legitimate transmission

Secure wireless powered and cooperative jamming D2D communications

This paper investigates a secure wireless-powered device-to-device (D2D) communication network in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers, where a hybrid base station (BS) in a cellular network not only provides power wirelessly for the D2D transmitter to guarantee power efficiency for the D2D network, but also serves as a cooperative jammer (CJ) to interfere with the eavesdroppers. The cellular and D2D networks can belong to different service providers, which means that the D2D transmitter would need to pay for the energy service released by the hybrid BS to guarantee secure D2D communication. In order to exploit the hierarchical interaction between the BS and the D2D transmitter, we first formulate a Stackelberg game based energy trading scheme, where the quadratic energy cost model is considered. Then, a non-energy trading based Stackelberg game is investigated to study the reversed roles of the BS and the D2D users. For comparison, we also formulate and resolve the social welfare optimization problem. We derive the closed-form Stackelberg equilibriums of the formulated games and the optimal solutions for the social welfare optimization problem. Simulation results are provided to validate our proposed schemes to highlight the importance of energy trading interaction between cellular and D2D networks